


ride the storm (direct the whirlwind)

by thatiranianphantom



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Freeform, Gen, i guess, introspective, what does that even mean?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23606872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatiranianphantom/pseuds/thatiranianphantom
Summary: "So we dress, and wrap ourselves in gaudy clothes, empty garments, we put crowns on our heads, as if having a shell of what we think should be will make the fairy tale a reality."A Bughead introspective, and kind of a speculation on 4.17- 4.22.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	ride the storm (direct the whirlwind)

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, you guys. You GUYS. 
> 
> I gotta tell you, I didn't think I'd ever use this stuff. I wrote most of the general part of this piece nigh on a decade ago, just as a random short story. It's been in my drive forever, didn't think I'd ever use it. 
> 
> And then Bughead happened. 
> 
> And then quarantine happened.
> 
> You know how you write something and kind of mentally give yourself a pat on the back? Congratulate yourself on writing something so profound and original? And then, in my case, you come back to it eight years later and think "You pretentious little shit, this thing sucks." 
> 
> You get the idea. 
> 
> I reworked it a little bit to be for Bughead, but the Les-Mis-Knockoff feel and general air of pretentiousness still abound. 
> 
> Nonetheless, I did put a lot of time and effort into this, and I do hope you all enjoy it! If you want the Bughead rant, look no further than the end notes, friend. I will say now that there will be spoilers there, so be forewarned. 
> 
> Also, please do comment if you feel able! This is a different style for me and I would love to know what you think!

_ Life and death, energy and peace. If I stopped today, it was still worth it. Even the things that I have done, and would have undone if I could have. The terrible pains that have burned me and scarred my soul. It was worth it for having been allowed to walk where I walked. Which is to hell on earth, heaven on earth, back again, into, under, far in between, through it, in it, and above it. _

_ -Gia Marie Carangini _

* * *

When we are children, most of us at least, ritualistic traditions rule our young, impressionable lives. We get up at the same time every day, go to the same school every day, eat at the same time with the same people every day. And at night, we burrow ourselves into a soft, warm bed, should we be lucky enough to have one, and listen. Listen to soothing voices, voices with sleep lapping at their edges, voices tell great tales. Tales of dragons and princesses, of love and war, of lives our subconscious minds let us believe could exist, whether by denial or some form of nurturing for the soul and creative mind. Fairy tales. And with them, the mind grows ripe and thrives on this food, this wonderful, exciting food, and we crave, we covet more. And with more, it is not enough to just hear these, we must  _ become  _ these. So we dress, and wrap ourselves in gaudy clothes, empty garments, we put crowns on our heads, as if having a shell of what we think should be will make the fairy tale a reality. And again, our subconscious mind allows it, perhaps sheltering the young, naive mind, allowing it its indiscretions, its delusions, protecting it so much like a parent wrapping a child in their arms. They will know soon enough. The world will teach them. 

* * *

_ Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit, without hope, without witness, without reward. Virtue is only virtue in extremis. _

* * *

And that knowledge takes up permanent residence in their minds, a dark stranger lurking on the edges of consciousness, the memory, the thought pushed away. Young dreams are so fragile, so innocent, to shatter them is shattering a soul, a soul just beginning to grow. A such fairy tale, a life consisting of an entire fairy tale, must be protected, until inevitably, the world strips it away, whether it be chip by chip, as if trying to find some obscure diamond that may or may not have wanted to let itself be known, or at once, as if a blanket is being ripped away and the child, now not a child, is left to find its own warmth, in its own way.

* * *

_ Within the core of each of us is the child we once were. This child constitutes the foundation of what we have become, who we are, and what we will be. _

_ -Rhawn Joseph _

* * *

  
  


But this story is not about those children, although reference bears to them. This story is about a boy, (and later a girl). His name carries no importance, as his name was not chosen himself, but chosen at a time where his personality was unknown, even at a time where he was simply learning the basics of what makes a person. How, then, would they be able to make such an assumption as to know what an important part of his being as a whole was to be labelled as? No matter their relation to the boy, the path of a life, a path set in motion by the ritualistic bearing of a title given and intended to carry throughout a life, it would be as if this path through his life they were trying to write. The name they gave the boy, not chosen himself, was marked by a history of pain. Of loneliness. Of darkness. And so, in a first small act of rebellion, the boy chose a new marker. The boy owned this new name, turned his nose up at the derision it produced. He rebelled. He took the identity others had attempted to write for him, and he made a piece of it, one tiny piece of it, his own. And it is rebelling against this that our story begins.

There once was a boy, a very small boy. A boy to whom the world was new, all bright colors and loud noises. But to the boy’s parents, the world held no more surprises. All colors had been seen, noises heard. There were no spirits, and there most certainly were no miracles, their new son included. Science would label every element of how this child came to be. The child was a surprise, this could not be denied, but they were reluctant to pin glowing terms down on him. Blessing. Angel. There were no miracles, no angels after all, so clearly this child could not be one. They took him to their tiny trailer residence, a dwelling holding too much grime and noise and hurled ugly words to ever truly be called a home. 

* * *

_ I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be. _

_ \- Alexander Hamilton  _

* * *

And with this, the boy grew. He grew bigger, and he craved what children crave. When the sun had fallen - as if in an exhausted slumber itself, the boy rationalized – and night’s dark blanket had strewn itself across the sky, the boy would climb under his warm covers, waiting. Waiting for the voices to tell him those tales. It was his turn, he was old enough, to hear of the castles, of the dense forests and knights who braved them. 

The stories came, but not the ones he wanted. There came stories not wanting to fill a mind hungering for the buds that plant dreams, instead harsh stories of reality flowed. Stories without princesses and princes, without dragons and witches, without creativity, without imagination, without  _ life _ . Bitter disappointment welled in the bottom of the boy’s stomach, each drop filling up like a well. 

  
  


But the parents pressed on. They would ignore the boy’s fervent requests for just one story out of a dream, just  _ one _ ! But there would be none. Instead, preparation, as his parents rationalized it, in their own way making him his own armor for what his life was to give him. Yet how presumptuous this was lost on them. They would not, could not realize that they were unable to see into their son’s future, to pick out which experiences were gentle and which were hard. If in preparing the boy for the worst, should they not prepare the boy for the best as well? Should they not let him know not only were their horrors in life, but pleasures as well? Whether it be because of the tales of their childhoods or their conscious minds sincerity in thinking this was what was right, they, almost inadvertently, shut the child off. He grew, and he grew ignored. No questions were to be asked, for no life would come in the answer. 

  
  


And in this the boy learned the two most filling, sustaining, life-giving things his young mind could hold. Two things that would entrench themselves, poison his tiny five-year old mind. 

_ There are no words, lest you write them yourself. Nobody will write your story for you. Nobody will tell your story to you.  _

_ And you are alone. Forever, destiny has carved your path for you to walk alone.  _

And so the boy was alone. Walls erected themselves around his young heart, walls too strong, too established to be felled by the small toss of a smile, the warm grip of friendship. So too, to see the bright walls of a classroom that was his daily escape as anything other than fake. Gaudy. Meaningless. Life wasn’t meant for such things, he knew. Life was dark, like the trailer that held so much hate. Like the amber liquid his father consumed in excess. Like the wails of his tiny sister. Alone. Ignored.

* * *

_ If the truth shall kill them, let them die. _

_ \- Immanuel Kant _

* * *

  
  


Yet, here it is, entering the story, that we see the paladin, and the girl. It would be remiss to describe them as anything but bright. The boy shone with the love poured into him, and the girl was the brightest thing the boy had ever seen. His mind struggles to wrap itself around the din of the room, but an angel themselves could not fail to notice the girl. Her blond hair glistens, wrapped tightly into a ponytail, and her eyes..they change something inside of him, carve out something he doesn’t recognize.

She is not scared of him. She smiles, takes his hand in hers. And in that moment, a piece of the girl inscribes itself into the boy’s soul, and he scarcely knows how he will ever disentangle himself. 

  
  


And so it goes. 

The paladin keeps the boy close, close in a way he was taught he could never be. The paladin does something the boy never thought possible. He  _ cares _ , and he never asks why. The paladin nourishes the boy, keeps him close, keeps him human. When the darkness grips the tiny trailer, the paladin offers warmth. When safety is no longer a promise, the paladin offers security. And so, the paladin takes a piece of the boy, and he lights that piece up as well. 

The paladin keeps him human, and the girl keeps him real. 

He buries himself in his words. The girl has always been an excellent reader. 

He holds himself alone. The girl takes his hand. 

He conceals himself in the dark, and they turn his face to the light. 

* * *

_ If I tell you who I am, you may not like who I am, and that is all I have. _

_ \- John Powell _

* * *

In doing that, a piece of the boy changes. His arms reached out, and time after time, they caught him. So the boy began to think this would always be so. There is nobody, nobody but the paladin and the girl. That piece of him rests, at long last, it rests.

Let it not be said that the boy grew trusting. No, the boy’s walls remain up, and his soul grows used to disappointment, expectant of disappointment. He feels the monsters inside him, hurling words so much like his parents, he feels his arms empty of the innocence that is his sister, he feels his dwelling empty of whatever warmth it may have once held, and he is left, unprotected, a thin keel of his soul still trusting, still vulnerable, but so much of him lost and alone. 

So the boy uses his words. His words form into a weapon, something he can choose. Something he can control. And with these the boy grew even more. He grew into a teenager, a young one, one who didn’t let his heart show, who surrounded themselves with his wall of words.

_ There are no words, lest you write them yourself. Nobody will write your story for you. Nobody will tell your story to you.  _

The words pour out of him, stories of murders for hire, of games that kill, of children groomed to be terrible things. Things that, while not what the boy wished for as a young one, that are real. That happen. Not what he’d hoped for, not what he’d planned. But the words keep him gripped in reality, keep him connected to the world around him. 

And all that there is, and all that there ever was, is the paladin, the girl, and the boy. 

* * *

_ I tell myself what I have always told myself. It is what all writers have told themselves, consciously or otherwise. The things you feel are universal.  _

_ -Martin Amis _

* * *

But the world spins, and entropy tends us toward chaos, and nothing stays the same. The boy feels he always should have known, because he sees. His gaze is fixed on the outside world, and he sees the girl, and the paladin. He sees the sparkle, the added glow when she looks at the paladin. A glow only for him, and the boy cannot staunch the curl of anger that rests in his chest. The paladin doesn’t see it. He is not aware that he is the luckiest person the world has ever known. He was the true prince. The boy is merely a placeholder. 

He knows so little of love, but he knows the warmth in the girl’s eyes when she gazes at the paladin, and he knows what it is.

And in this season, his words are only echoes of two facts, two eternal, unchangeable facts. 

Sometimes (all the time), the girl looks at him, all brightness and joy, and his stomach flips in a way he doesn’t understand, but he wants to live in it. He wants to bask in her brilliance all his life. It’s not a familiar feeling, not one he has ever felt. It’s...softer than anything he can think of. At times, it makes his mind flash to things he has not thought of in a lifetime, things still hiding at the recesses of his mind. Sometimes he just sits and listens to her, and into his mind ride dragons, and princesses, and war, and peace and something else. Something that covers him like a blanket, that’s soft like a mother’s embrace and warm like a kiss. He thinks it’s maybe, perhaps, love, and the feeling is terrifying. The words pour onto the page, words locked on a hidden folder in his laptop, and even deeper in that part of his soul she inhabits, words of devotion, of longing, of love. 

* * *

_ Those who stand for nothing fall for everything. _

_ \- Alexander Hamilton _

* * *

But his darkness is a disease, a blackness that consumes anything he gets too close to. A blackness that is woven into softness when he is around her, a darkness he dare not infect her with, not something so pure, so good. 

There are times, though. Times where she clutches his hand, or looks him in the eye, and the  _ I love you _ jumps to his lips, in a breath of hope. 

But hope is foolish, and he knows this, as sure as he knows the second untenable fact.

The girl feels none of this for him, and all of this for the paladin. It is as it ever was, and will ever be. 

  
  
  


But it isn’t. It isn’t, because somehow, using the part of him that she set aflame, he takes that little lighted piece of his heart, and he offers it up to her. He climbs into her window, and she lets him in. He gives his whole heart to her, and she cradles it carefully. For the very first time, someone wants him. That, in itself, would not be as big as it is, but that it is the girl. And she chooses him. Him, and all his fractured pieces, not the paladin. 

  
  


And then the girl is his, as much as a person can belong to another. And they go through so much, they hold each other through so much.

* * *

_ And if one day you should behold a miracle as I have in you, you will learn that truth is not found in science, or on some unseen plane, but by looking into your own heart.  _

* * *

He changes. 

He trusts.

Something so good should not exist for him, but it does. It goes, year by year. She stays. 

He kisses her after climbing in her bedroom window. He would compare it to a prince rescuing a damsel in distress from a tower, but the girl never was a damsel. She was never caught up in the storm. No, she is the storm. And the world tries to take the girl away from the boy. Their parents, those sworn to protect them, are taken away, or they leave, or they die, but the girl holds onto the boy. The boy presses the girl into the tops of the cabinets, and the whole dwelling, once so small, so dark and ugly, explodes with color. 

She is a Rembrandt, so bright, so honest, he feels stories come to life within her. 

And she chooses him, she chooses him over and over, even when he is convinced he can no longer choose her. He will hurt her. It feels almost like an inevitability, a twist on the classic tales he hungered for in his youth. The prince destroys the princess, but he was never a prince. 

The boy has seen much, so much more than many see in their lifetimes. The boy is hard, rough and impassive. But to see the light dim in the girl, to see her shine dulled because of him - that is something he can’t stomach. It’s selfish, but he is selfish when it comes to her. 

He manages one week without her, and in that week, his wall of words collapses. He writes nothing. He feels nothing. He is nothing. The world is gray and dull, and he sees the world around him differently now. Now, he knows. He knows the world with her, and he knows the world without her. 

But he needs her. Even if he can’t be with her, he has needed her since his earliest years. She slides into his lap, seals her lips to his, breathes color back into his life again, pours the words back into his soul. 

In the year, he dies. It’s not a hero’s death, and he refuses to think of it that way. But he calls her, he hears her voice one more time, like a balm over his soul. The words he’d held back for so long flow free, and he regrets only that he cannot go through life with her. That he will never see her in a white dress, that they will never be a king and a queen, that he cannot hold her in his arms at the age of a hundred, their children and grandchildren surrounding them.

* * *

_ A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. _

_ \- Greek Proverb  _

* * *

  
  


The pounding headache when he wakes to find her against him, breathing and whole and real, is a feeling he relishes.

And then they become partners. In life, and in all else. He knows, he  _ knows _ he knows as sure as he’s ever known anything, as sure as he knows his own name, that she is it. That there is no other princess. That for her, there is no other prince. That their story will be written as one. A murderous game threatens to split them apart, it takes her father, and outside forces take her mother. The girl is alone. 

But then, they are never alone. He tries, he tries with every ounce of him to tell her this. He kisses it into her skin, he reads her his words that are the truest part of him as she sobs against him, he preserves everything that was her in her room exactly as it was. 

And when the world continues its quest to chip away at them, when it pulls him far away, when it kills him, he knows it cannot. 

They are one, and they will be forever. 

She tells him he is her rescuer, but he is not. The girl breathes magic into the boy. He can think of no other explanation, than she imbues his very being with her brightness, her light. The girl breathes magic into everybody around her, and her magic fixes her mother, it fixes his father, it fixes his sister, it fixes her brother. 

The girl sees herself as broken, as someone who destroys. She is the witch, or so she thinks. But he knows better. She is not one who breaks, she is one who heals. He offers up all he is to her, and he is broken and rough and dark, and she makes him feel different.

She kisses him and it makes him feel joy.

She breathes his name in pleasure and it makes him feel invincible.

She holds his hand and he feels as though he could conquer anything.

He is irrevocably tied up in the girl, has given her his darkest pieces and knows she’ll hold them carefully, forever. 

* * *

_ In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love. _

_ \- Albert Camus _

* * *

And then...

And then. 

He sings for her. Always for her,  _ only _ for her. 

And maybe life felt a little...different after death. 

And maybe he didn’t say it, but she was always his. There was never any other way.

But some day, in some cosmically fated event, she was no longer his.

* * *

_ Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it. _

_ \- Terry Pratchett _

* * *

And it shifts. 

He would like it to the leaves changing in the fall.

What was once bursting with color, what once sustained him, was no more.

The world turned brown, and then grey.

_ And you are alone. Forever, destiny has carved your path for you to walk alone.  _

* * *

_ We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered. _

_ \- Tom Stoppard  _

* * *

Others would say that she stomped on his heart. That he was right all along. That she and the paladin were, and ever would be, destiny. That he was a dark, broken boy from a trailer park and this was never his future. 

He can’t, though. 

His love for her is not a switch he can turn off. He can’t hate her, because he loves her, he loves her, he  _ loves  _ her, and it’s the truest thing, the only thing, he has ever known. 

But his world empties. The plug is pulled from the moment she sits him down on  _ their _ bed and tells him she’s...confused.

Her words swirl around him now. That this doesn’t mean she doesn’t love him, that she’s so sorry, but she doesn’t tell him it meant nothing. 

He gave her his heart, his soul, his words, and he trusted her to keep them safe. Now they lay with her. In that, he thinks, they will be linked forever. It’s almost comforting. He will live the rest of his life without his heart. A being emptied, but at least he will exist in her forever. 

It’s selfish. But when has he ever been less than that? 

So then there is no girl, no paladin, there is only the boy.

_ Foolish to hope that it would ever be anything else. _

And there, in black, he rests. 

* * *

_ Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.  _

_ – G.K. Chesterton _

* * *

Our story ends, as all stories do. And it ends the way many stories end, with grief, and loss, and hurt. But for the boy and the girl, the end is not the end. 

No, out of their story will pour all the things the boy craved as a child, and the stories he writes are stories whispered again, but this time, in warmth. In the warmth of a small bed, the boy’s son will hear stories of castles, and princesses, and the boy who was a prince after all. Tiny green eyes will drink in the colors of the world around him, and the words will keep this tiny little one safe. 

In time, all in time. In time, they will be their own fairy tale. 

* * *

_ Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.  _

_ – CS Lewis _

* * *

  
  
  


  
  


**Author's Note:**

> OKAY HERE IS THE RANT. Again, spoilers, so if you don't like that, look away and please do leave a comment! 
> 
> So Betty and Jughead have been happily in a relationship, an extremely healthy, committed relationship for three years. I would totally get it if they'd grown apart, or were fighting all the time, but they have appeared to be just as in sync, if not more, than before. So cheating on Jug with Archie is just...selfish. On both of their parts, for so many reasons. Not the least of which is, it will completely crush Jughead, to say NOTHING of Veronica. Betty is so important to Veronica. To do this to her is not okay. 
> 
> But I know, in the producers' minds, everyone will come back for season 5 if we implode the core 4 and jump ahead 6 years, so we don't have to go through the trouble of showing their college years. Lazy, but what will likely happen.


End file.
